Saturday - OTR. Working at my sister's. The first thing was
to dis-assemble the old deck frame and move it to the new location,
closer to the pool. This was fairly easy, but placing the piers wasn't.
I'd forgotten my laser level, so I had to use 12' lengths of the not
very straight old lumber as leveling rods, using a 6' level. We bought
some better piers and sand and set about it. It took most of the day
just to get them in place and roughly aligned - that ground is hard as
rock.
In fact the town of Niles is the former site of numerous quarries and
clay yards. I'd asked my sister if she had a pick and shovel, and she'd
said yes. What she actually had was a short handled shovel and one of
those little utility shovels that army jeeps are supplied with - 18"
long and if you adjust a knob on the end it is transformed sort of a
pick too. Anyhow, we got the piers in, though not as deep as I'd like.
In particular near the house there are two I didn't like, but V didn't
want to redo them. My comment was "Can't see it from my house!" and I
moved on to the next task.
The ground in the new location is a great deal lower than the original
location, approaching two feet. Because she wanted the deck level with
the house, rather than a step down this meant that I had to install 4x4
posts from the piers up to the deck proper.
Friday 3 August
2012
Friday
- OTR. Went over mid morning and dropped off stuff, then spent most of
the day trying to get the plumbing straightened out. The first problem
was that there appeared to be no studs in the only sheet rocked wall to
hang the shampoo basin from. The second is that there was no real hot
water, there was a single cold water line that went through a splitter
and fed a little water heater and then the existing sink. To add
another bowl meant two more splitters, a bunch more hoses, and all of
weird sizes. In the end, after a bunch of shopping at Lowe's and
elsewhere, we picked up a nice new Shampoo bowl down in San Mateo and
brought it back. I drew a diagram of how it should be plumbed to my
friends, and they are going to continue working on it tomorrow.
Thursday 2 August2012
Thursday
- OTR. Headed up to Fremont and San Francisco at about noon, much later
than I'd planned. The back of the Explorer is full of stuff for the new
salon, "Mirror Mirror" I think it's called, to the point where stuff
was touching the roof. Still, that's better than dragging a trailer at
55mph. I arrived so late that I just stayed at my sister's place in
Niles rather than try to deliver and unload stuff at 9pm in San
Francisco. Lot's of slow traffic and construction. The 99, the 5 and
the 33 all had major construction and delays. It could be an accident
that CalTrans has messed up all the North-South arteries at the same
time ... or they are making a statement to Sacramento about their
importance in a time of (supposedly) stringent budget cutting. Ah well.
It's nice having air conditioning....
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Wednesday - The hot weather means
the birds are going through the feed quickly - both the hummingbird
feeder and the little mesh seed feeder need filling every couple of a
days. I noticed that there are four
hummingbirds fighting over the feeder. The "owner" will chase one away
and the other two will come and scarf down until he returns. The
"owner" is not the largest of the hummingbirds, but he has some sort of
moral authority I guess, or maybe just has more fight in him. One of
the thief's has an interesting flying sound, more like the sound from
the Jetson's car than the usual hummingbird hum.
I was going to paint the trim brown next to the French doors, in back,
but realized as I was taking off the little weather sealing strips that
it should be green, just like the rest of the exterior trim. Which
makes things a little easier, less taping off and such. But now I need
to give that part another coat, to match the rest, it's more of a
primer coat, soaking in despite the former paint. The wood was pretty
weathered, and it's easy to see the grain and such with new satin
paint. But since the trim on the rest of the house is kind of a rough
cut timber style it looks OK, fits right in, not a lot of sanding and
smoothing necessary.
I'm getting ready for the trip north, collecting tools, packing, and
going over and picking up the stuff I'm supposed to bring.
Tuesday 31 July 2012
Tuesday
- Hot again.
Did some bills, which made me realize that I forgot to buy stamps at
Von's yesterday :-( So I drove over and bought those, then gassed up
the
Explorer, wash-n-waxed it, then went over to Home Depot COSTCO and
had the
tires rotated.
While that was going on I had an eye exam. My prescription has changed
nearly a diopter - for the better. Huh.
The optometrist says it should now be corrected to 20:25, which I
doubt,
but it will certainly be better than trying to navigate in
Los Angeles by estimates of the name length on street signs rather
than, you know,
actually being able to read
them.
It's funny - in Home Depot
COSTCO I passed by the teevee section and noticed that the 47" flat
screen teevee's look tiny
alongside the 60", 72" and 80" units. Mine is certainly big enough for
my room! The prices also seemed a bit higher than when I bought,
perhaps we're past the post-Christmas get-rid-of-inventory stage of
things.
Monday 30 July 2012
Monday
- did some of the green trim. After it was done it was easy to see some
spots that I missed with the caulk - I'll have to go back and redo some
spots. I've also have a quart of "gloss leather brown" RustOleum in the
garage that I'll try using for the inside part of the frame.
I picked up a bench at Home Depot, one of those "park bench" style
units. It turned out to be kind of a rip off, as the posted price did
not include the "assembly fee" of $20, which moved it from the "deal"
category to "typical". I suspect the law would say they'd have to sell
it at the posted price, but whatever...
Did a lot of shopping too - I haven't been to the grocery store since I
got back and the cupboard was getting a bit bare.
One of the tools in my garage is an old wire cutter that I stole
obtained from my Dad years ago. I was using it the other day and
realized that it was made in 1941, during WW2. At internet search
describes it as being a military barbed wire cutter.
It was designed for use on live circuits, as the handle is marked
"30KV".
Helpful
hint of the day: If you see your cat intently stalking a bird: do not reach down and surprise it
with a little pat on the back. Or, if you do, make sure you're wearing
heavy gloves.
Sunday
29
July 2012
Sunday
- Working in the back on the trim and stuff. It sure gets hot quick
around here in July!
Here's a shot of the USB stick that I rescued data off, last week. It
would be repairable if I had a small enough solder gun, but I had a
dozen 8GB sticks laying about, and just used one them to transfer and
return the data with.
I can remember when 2GB was a lot
of data, not a match head sized chip.
I'll probably head up to San Francisco and Fremont later in the week.
I'll help deliver some equipment to a beauty salon a friend's daughter
is opening, then head over to Niles and help my sister move/install a
deck in her back yard. Probably fix that bad hose bib in the front as
well.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Cliffs at Red Rock
Canyon.
